Monday 20 June 2011

A weekend of chilling with the future bosses.

Guys, I want you to brace yourselves because today I actually have something worthwhile to say. 

I'm not going to lie, due to the mundane '9-5' of my life, I do occasionally have to strain my brain  muscles to come up with something of importance for this thing. 

But every so often, a gem of a day occurs that is actually worth blogging about. A day that proves I do, on certain mysterious occasions, go out and not live a life that will keep me stuck doing the exact same thing in ten years. 

This weekend's little gem was a Writer's conference in London. This conference was designed for first time writers who were desperately trying to get their book published. 



I have been preparing for this conference for about 3-4 months. During these months of nothing else going on, my imagination for how this day would pan out has been going wild. 

You see, the people putting together this little shindig were A&C Black/Bloomsbury publishers. A&C Black are responsible for the Writer's and Artist's handbook, otherwise known as the writer's bible. Bloomsbury published this little book... You may have heard of it... I think it was called something like Sally Trotter? - no - wait Harry Potter, that's it. 

As a result of laying snuggled in this beautiful little nugget of information I had imagined my day panning out a bit like this:

Me: And that, in a nutshell, is my book. 
Publisher: I have just one word for you - AMAZING!
Me: Really?
Publisher: Sweetie, if we don't publish your book right this very minute, I honestly don't think my life will be worth living any more. 
Me: Aw, you're sweet. 
Publisher: In fact, whilst you were telling me this storyline, I had one of my best designers put together a book cover for you. 
Me: Really? How does he know what to draw?
Publisher: He's been sitting under the table. I always like to have him nearby in case I were ever to run into a story like yours. 

Designer comes out from under the table with massive cardboard poster of the design for my book. 


Designer: Now this is only the first draft, give me an hour and I'll have it just the way you want it. 
Me: Wow, this is great! When do you think we could get published?

Publisher's assistant pops her head around the door with a mobile phone to her ear. 

Publisher's assistant:
Unfortunately I can't get it on the stands today but we're booking shipments for overnight so they'll be there first thing in the morning. Obviously you'll be compensated for the wait. 
Me: Compensated?
Publisher: (Puts a silver case on the table) I only have a couple of million in cash with me now but we can wire the rest of the money straight to your account. 
Me: The rest??!!
Publisher: I'm sorry, we should have been more prepared. Please don't go to someone else. 

Pause

Me: (Voice cracking) No, the two million will be just fine. 

It might surprise you to know that this wasn't how it really panned out... Sort of... And by sort of, I mean completely. 

But as I don't usually have interesting stuff happen to me, I'm going to milk it for all it's worth and wait until tomorrow before I tell you what really happened. 

Peace out my lovelies. 

2 comments:

  1. I was completely convinced that I could go pick up your book today on Amazon today until you dashed my hopes at the end there.

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  2. Ha ha. Yeah, tbh I was a little disappointed it didn't happen either...

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